Read Ireland Book Review
Issue 182
The Nationalists of Northern Ireland 1918-1973 by Edna Staunton
Paperback, 14.99 IEP / 18.00 USD / 12.50 UK / 19.10 EURO; Columba Press, 397 pages [Add To Basket]This is the first full-length study of the nationalists in Northern Ireland during the period 1918-1973. It draws upon substantial original research, including much material which has never been published elsewhere. The author has traced all the major strands within northern nationalism - constitutionalist, labourist and militant republican. He examines the complex relationships between them, and with the principal power entities of Irish nationalism, the southern state and the Roman Catholic Church.
Do Penance or Perish: A Study of Magdalen Asylums in Ireland by Frances Finnegan
Hardback; 25.00 IEP / 30.00 USD / 20.00 UK / 31.80 EURO; Congrave Press, 256 pages [Add To Basket]This book is a history of four of Ireland's Convent Magdalen Asylums, established in the mid-nineteenth century for the detention of prostitutes undergoing reform. It traces the development of the Female Penitentiary Movement in Britain and examines how, following the arrival of the Good Shepherd Sisters in 1848, 'Rescue Work' in Ireland underwent a change. Short-term lay refuges became long-term Magdalen institutions, many of whose inmates were discouraged from leaving and were sometimes detained for life. Labouring in the adjoining laundries, unpaid workers were subjected to penance, harsh discipline, silence and prayer. As prostitute numbers dwindled other 'fallen' women were targeted including unmarried mothers and wayward or abused girls - many being incarcerated by their families or priests. Drawing on hitherto unpublished material, this book contains case-histories of individual women and insights into how the Homes were run. Though concentrating largely on the Victorian period, the study explores the survival of these institutions into the late twentieth-century. It discusses far-reaching consequences of such a system, especially for the poor - many of whose children were housed in the Order's adjacent Industrial Schools; and it examines some of the misconceptions surrounding this significant episode in Irish women's history.
Ireland's Holy Wars: The Struggle for a Nation's Soul 1500-2000 by Marcus Tanner
Hardback; 25.00 IEP / 30.50 USD / 21.00 UK / 31.80 EURO; Yale University Press, 498 pages [Add To Basket]For much of the 20th century, Ireland has been synonymous with conflict, the painful struggle for its national soul part of the regular fabric of life. And because the Irish have emigrated to all parts of the world - while always remaining Irish - ' the troubles' have become part of a common heritage, well beyond their own borders. Within the immense literature on the Irish 'problem', the most usual focus is the political rivalry between Unionism and Republicanism. But the roots of the Irish conflict are profoundly and inescapably religious. As the author shows in this vivid, engaging and perceptive book, only by understanding the history - played out over five centuries - of the failed attempts by the English to make Ireland into a Protestant state can the pervasive tribal hatreds of today be seen in context. Tanner traces the emergence of a modern Irish national identity in the popular resistance to this imposed Protestantism and the common defense of Catholicism by the Gaelic Irish and the Old English of the Pale, who settled in Ireland after its twelfth-century conquest. In addition to a thorough study of the written sources, the book is enriched by a personal encounter with today's Ireland, from Belfast to Dublin and Cork.
Letters from Ireland: Harriet Martineau edited by Glenn Hooper
Hardback; 35.00 IEP / 41.50 USD / 30.00 UK / 44.50 EURO; Irish Academic Press, 200 pages [Add To Basket]In 1852 Harriet Martineau sailed into the city of Derry, from where she began her tour of Ireland. Visiting the Companies estates of Londonderry, before moving eastward towards Belfast, then on to Dublin, Galway and the West, she assessed the complexities of Ireland at a particularly difficult period in Irish History. Like many of her fellow travellers, she was both fascinated by Ireland's potential, yet repulsed by so much of Irish life. She spoke eloquently about the suffering still evident in many Irish workhouses,, about the levels of disease and malnutrition that so many individuals still endured, and yet she was at times remarkably unsympathetic about what she regarded as outmoded cultural practices. Written as a series of leaders for the Daily News, Martineau surveyed Ireland with a particularly rational eye: appreciating its possibilities, quantifying its potential, scarifying its sometimes unyielding inhabitants for their superstitions and, as she saw it, childish attachment to church and land. Republished for the first time, this newly edited and annotated edition contributes to our knowledge of nineteenth-century Ireland and specifically to post-Famine Ireland.
The Village of Longing by George O'Brien
Paperback; 7.99 IEP / 9.50 USD / 6.50 UK / 10.20 EURO; Lilliput Press, 151 pages [Add To Basket]Originally published in 1987, this book is a remarkable memoir. The author's narrative of his childhood in the somnolent river-valley settlement of Lismore, Co. Waterford during the 1950s has established itself as a contemporary classic of the genre. It describes the life and surroundings of an only child raised in an unorthodox household within a close-knit society, ruled by the twin empires of Castle and Church, haunted by the lure of foreignness and the pain of exile. The author's shimmering prose incarnates an Ireland in microcosm - a physical place and a place of the mind.
Yeats: The Irish Literary Revival and the Politics of Print by Yug Mohit Chaundhry
Paperback; 17.99 IEP / 22.00 USD / 16.00 UK / 23.00 EURO; Cork University Press, 292 pages [Add To Basket]This book examines the relationship between Yeats, literary nationalism, and the publishing industry of late Victorian Britain and Ireland through the bibliographical and socio-historical context surrounding Yeats and the Revival. It presents evidence suggesting that through ignorance of context scholars have often misunderstood, or, at the very best, not fully understood, the nature of Yeats's politics and his political allegiances. Reinserting Yeats's work into its environment of primary publication can so fundamentally alter our understanding that even time-honoured and canonical texts such as 'September 1913' and seminal historical events such as the Revival can be seen to have new aspects which contradict commonly accepted views. Such an approach poses radical challenges to dominant interpretations and, unlike excessively theoretical or subjective approaches, is backed up by solidly empirical methods.
W.B. Yeats: A New Biography by A. Norman Jeffares
Paperback; 14.00 IEP / 17.50 USD / 12.50 UK / 18.80 EURO; Continuum, 326 pages [Add To Basket]This new biography is an entire re-writing of his classic book: W.B. Yeats: Man and Poet, which draws to excellent effect on the immense amount of intervening scholarship and newly available writings.
The Lieutenant of Inishmore by Martin McDonagh
Paperback; 11.20 IEP / 13.50 USD / 8.99 UK / 14.40 EURO; Methuen, 69 pages [Add To Basket]The most recent play from Martin McDonagh set in Inishmore. Premiered at the RCS's The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon, in April 2001.
A Crumlin Lad: A Collection of Poems by Christopher Cox
Paperback; 6.99 IEP / 8.00 USD / 6.00 UK / 8.90 EURO; Messenger Publications, 80 pages. [Add To Basket]From Brendan Kennelly's introduction: 'Christie Cox has led a pretty tough life until quite recently. I've always found him a generous, articulate man. When I first met him I was teaching in Mountjoy Prison, and Christie was one of the liveliest members of the class. While his life was often in trouble, he remained determined to write poetry as best he could, to chart his difficult journey through the years. And this he has done.'
The Winning Formula for GAA Players by Niamh Flynn
Paperback; 12.50 IEP / 15.00 USD / 10.50 UK / 16.00 EURO; Bodywatch, 109 pages [Add To Basket]This book contains information on fitness, nutrition, sports psychology, the factors which mitigate against sports performance and the factors which can be used to improve sporting ability.
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